Many so called “fly-by-wire” transport category prior-art dual control aircraft have controls that do not move in unison and do not transmit by feel the manipulation of the controls by one pilot to the other pilot or control surface aerodynamic deflection force or the auto-pilot or automation moving the controls or control surfaces, or warning systems that transmit warnings through feel in the stick or control column. In the case of two pilots with their hands on the controls at the same time the pilot applying the greater force does not override the other pilot. Button presses or procedural steps including call outs are necessary to transfer control or to override the other stick defeating an important redundancy that previously existed on even the earliest aircraft. Additionally when an auto-thrust system is changing settings many transport category aircraft have thrust levers that are not moved by automation so the additional instant redundant feedback for engine control settings by feel has been lost and only can be seen by latent instrument movement of thrust settings in the pilots visual frame of reference.
A large number of prior art transport category aircraft flying today force the pilot to use his sense of vision much more to make up for loss of touch feedback. Whoever is at the controls can only convey what is being done with the stick to the other pilot visually and/or aurally and not by feel in the other pilots controls (other pilots fingers and hands). Methods of warning the pilot of imminent danger through feel exist on many aircraft flying today except for a large number of so called “fly by wire” transport category aircraft. The prior art stick shaker and stick pusher methods of warning the pilot through feel of a problem have been discarded. Therefore the aircraft can be said to be less automated in this respect causing added work for the pilots especially in emergency situations and especially to find out what automation may be doing. In many emergent situations such as cockpit display failure, smoke in the cockpit, or unreliable sensor/instrument indications the pilot who would normally not have to speak about control position must talk to the other pilot creating extra chatter. In the case of automated flight neither control stick moves at all nor do the thrust levers on many transport category aircraft flying today.
Resultant instrument readings that must be used in place of the sense of touch is not trivial in providing instant sensory information used by the pilot to have awareness of the status of the aircraft and control positions. Earliest aircraft had cables to transmit control movement by one pilot to the other pilot via movements in both sticks or control columns and aerodynamic forces were also transmitted to the sticks or yoke and control column giving instant awareness of the status of the aircraft and control positions. Additionally the thrust levers, rudder pedals and in the case of turbo-props power levers, and propeller levers used cables or other mechanical mechanisms to indicate commanded values by their position. Feedback to the pilot what commanded values were set could easily be felt by the position of the levers. Auto-thrust systems moved the thrust-levers and in the case of the autopilot the yoke and control columns were moved indicating by feel what the current commanded position or setting was.
More widespread use of compact multiprocessor devices and their increased availability has made the application of multiprocessing to many applications much less expensive and compact and facilitates real time parallel computation of vector dot products to apply motion and torque to computer controlled electromagnets to directly drive the motion and maintain the position of a shaft on the end of a gimbal.
In view of these disadvantages and advantages this invention addresses this lack of redundancy in many modern transport category aircraft in flight today and to carry forward the redundant safety feature built into some of the earliest aircraft flown with the earliest art cable linked control systems which allowed feedback to the pilot through feel to indicate control movements by the other pilot, aerodynamic forces or the computer/automated flight control system actions via a robust and cost effecting parallel computing electronic means.